Patents by Inventor Masahiro Tooma

Masahiro Tooma has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9689660
    Abstract: An object of this invention is to sense a transient displacement of the blade position to thereby detect abnormalities early. The invention includes: one or more first sensors mounted so as to be removable from an outer surface of a casing opposed to blade tips; a second sensor for acquiring a signal from a fixed point on a rotor shaft of the blades; a section configured to extract data groups from an output signal of the first sensor on the basis of information acquired by the second sensor; a section configured to average the data groups; a section configured to determine thresholds from averaged data obtained under a healthy condition; and an assessing section configured to compare magnitude of the thresholds and sensor signals obtained during blade status monitoring. Since a transient displacement of blade position can be sensed, abnormalities can be detected early in this invention. This early detection, in turn, enables a rotation to be stopped during an initial phase of blade damage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2017
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd.
    Inventors: Akira Nishimizu, Toshiyuki Hiraoka, Masahiro Tooma, Soushi Narishige, Tetsuya Matsui
  • Patent number: 9334031
    Abstract: A system for attitude control of an underwater vehicle 20 of the present invention includes an underwater vehicle 20 with a thruster 65, an assist device 10 that is coupled to the underwater vehicle 20 with a cable 1 and has cable handling equipment 2 and a thruster 58, a cable attachment-to-attachment distance detection unit 50 that detects distance between a cable attachment of the underwater vehicle 20 and a cable dispenser of the assist device 10, and a control unit 32 that previously stores the relationship between the attachment-to-attachment distance and cable length including a predetermined amount of slack and determines the amount of cable to be wound up or let out based on the cable length associated with the detected attachment-to-attachment distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 10, 2016
    Assignee: Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd.
    Inventors: Hayato Mori, Ryosuke Kobayashi, Satoshi Okada, Naoyuki Kono, Katsuhiko Hirano, Yosuke Takatori, Masahiro Tooma
  • Publication number: 20150090175
    Abstract: A system for attitude control of an underwater vehicle 20 of the present invention includes an underwater vehicle 20 with a thruster 65, an assist device 10 that is coupled to the underwater vehicle 20 with a cable 1 and has cable handling equipment 2 and a thruster 58, a cable attachment-to-attachment distance detection unit 50 that detects distance between a cable attachment of the underwater vehicle 20 and a cable dispenser of the assist device 10, and a control unit 32 that previously stores the relationship between the attachment-to-attachment distance and cable length including a predetermined amount of slack and determines the amount of cable to be wound up or let out based on the cable length associated with the detected attachment-to-attachment distance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Publication date: April 2, 2015
    Inventors: Hayato MORI, Ryosuke KOBAYASHI, Satoshi OKADA, Naoyuki KONO, Katsuhiko HIRANO, Yosuke TAKATORI, Masahiro TOOMA
  • Publication number: 20150002143
    Abstract: An object of this invention is to sense a transient displacement of the blade position to thereby detect abnormalities early. The invention includes: one or more first sensors mounted so as to be removable from an outer surface of a casing opposed to blade tips; a second sensor for acquiring a signal from a fixed point on a rotor shaft of the blades; a section configured to extract data groups from an output signal of the first sensor on the basis of information acquired by the second sensor; a section configured to average the data groups; a section configured to determine thresholds from averaged data obtained under a healthy condition; and an assessing section configured to compare magnitude of the thresholds and sensor signals obtained during blade status monitoring. Since a transient displacement of blade position can be sensed, abnormalities can be detected early in this invention. This early detection, in turn, enables a rotation to be stopped during an initial phase of blade damage.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Publication date: January 1, 2015
    Inventors: Akira NISHIMIZU, Toshiyuki HIRAOKA, Masahiro TOOMA, Soushi NARISHIGE, Tetsuya MATSUI
  • Patent number: 8655022
    Abstract: The position detection system includes a pressure sensor that detects the vertical position of an underwater vehicle, a range sensor unit that detects the relative distances of the underwater vehicle from its surrounding structures; a measurement image acquisition unit that acquires a measurement image of the horizontal plane, an image storage unit that stores images, an image selector that selects one of the stored images that corresponds to the horizontal plane in which the relative distances have been detected, a corresponding-area identification unit that identifies the area in the selected image that corresponds to the measurement image by performing map matching, and a horizontal position calculator that identifies, the pixel that corresponds to the position at which the relative distances have been detected and calculates the horizontal position of the underwater vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd.
    Inventors: Ryosuke Kobayashi, Satoshi Okada, Masahiro Tooma, Yutaka Kometani, Yosuke Takatori, Mitsuru Odakura, Kojirou Kodaira
  • Patent number: 8387427
    Abstract: A high-pressure water jet is injected from a nozzle scanned and a shock wave generated due to the collapse of bubbles included in the water jet is impacted on a WJP execution object. Tensile residual stress close to the surface of the WJP execution object is improved to compressive residual stress. The shock wave is detected by a pressure sensor and a shock wave generation frequency is obtained. Whether the obtained shock wave generation frequency is larger than a set value or not is decided. When the shock wave generation frequency is larger than the set value, a high-pressure pump is stopped and the injection of the water jet from the nozzle is stopped. When the shock wave generation frequency is equal to or smaller than the set value, the operation condition of the high-pressure pump is changed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd.
    Inventors: Yuji Matsui, Masahiro Tooma, Atsushi Baba, Kouichi Kurosawa, Fujio Yoshikubo
  • Publication number: 20110005288
    Abstract: A high-pressure water jet is injected from a nozzle scanned and a shock wave generated due to the collapse of bubbles included in the water jet is impacted on a WJP execution object. Tensile residual stress close to the surface of the WJP execution object is improved to compressive residual stress. The shock wave is detected by a pressure sensor and a shock wave generation frequency is obtained. Whether the obtained shock wave generation frequency is larger than a set value or not is decided. When the shock wave generation frequency is larger than the set value, a high-pressure pump is stopped and the injection of the water jet from the nozzle is stopped. When the shock wave generation frequency is equal to or smaller than the set value, the operation condition of the high-pressure pump is changed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 2, 2010
    Publication date: January 13, 2011
    Applicant: Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd.
    Inventors: Yuji MATSUI, Masahiro Tooma, Atsushi Baba, Kouichi Kurosawa, Fujio Yoshikubo
  • Publication number: 20100226541
    Abstract: An object of the invention is to provide a system for detecting the position of an underwater vehicle that enables an improvement in the accuracy of detecting the position of the underwater vehicle.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 17, 2010
    Publication date: September 9, 2010
    Applicant: HITACHI - GE NUCLEAR ENERGY, LTD.
    Inventors: Ryosuke KOBAYASHI, Satoshi OKADA, Masahiro TOOMA, Yutaka KOMETANI, Yosuke TAKATORI, Mitsuru ODAKURA, Kojirou KODAIRA
  • Patent number: 7093490
    Abstract: In order to make it possible in ultrasonic flaw detection to generate ultrasonic waves containing a main beam only by use of an array probe and clearly identify a defect in a specimen by use of images, an element pitch P (the distance between centers of adjacent ultrasonic transducer elements in the array probe) is set longer than ¼ of the wavelength of longitudinal waves generated by the ultrasonic transducer elements and shorter than ½ of the wavelength and reception signals up to time corresponding to the sum of wall thickness round-trip propagation time for longitudinal waves and wall thickness round-trip propagation time for shear waves in the specimen are displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2006
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Naoyuki Kono, Tetsuya Matsui, Masahiro Koike, Masahiro Tooma, Yoshinori Musha, Masahiro Miki
  • Patent number: 6957583
    Abstract: An ultrasonic inspection instrument for detecting a crack and performing sizing in the depth direction of the crack. By a transmitter element array and a receiver element array included in a common sensor, focus points between focused acoustic fields are electronically scanned in a range including a location where half the sum of the transmitting angle of ultrasonic waves to an inspection-target material and the receiving angle of diffraction echoes from the inspection-target material is 30 degrees, so that a tip portion of the crack is detected from the received diffraction echoes. Thus, the detectability of the ultrasonic inspection instrument for detecting diffraction waves in a subject to be inspected and performing crack inspection is stabilized and kept high.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2005
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Masahiro Tooma, Naoyuki Kono, Masahiro Koike, Hirokazu Adachi, Takao Shimura, Makoto Senoo, Tetsuya Matsui
  • Publication number: 20050183505
    Abstract: In order to make it possible in ultrasonic flaw detection to generate ultrasonic waves containing a main beam only by use of an array probe and clearly identify a defect in a specimen by use of images, an element pitch P (the distance between centers of adjacent ultrasonic transducer elements in the array probe) is set longer than ¼ of the wavelength of longitudinal waves generated by the ultrasonic transducer elements and shorter than ½ of the wavelength and reception signals up to time corresponding to the sum of wall thickness round-trip propagation time for longitudinal waves and wall thickness round-trip propagation time for shear waves in the specimen are displayed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 4, 2005
    Publication date: August 25, 2005
    Inventors: Naoyuki Kono, Tetsuya Matsui, Masahiro Koike, Masahiro Tooma, Yoshinori Musha, Masahiro Miki
  • Publication number: 20040118210
    Abstract: An ultrasonic inspection instrument for detecting a crack and performing sizing in the depth direction of the crack. By a transmitter element array and a receiver element array included in a common sensor, focus points between focused acoustic fields are electronically scanned in a range including a location where half the sum of the transmitting angle of ultrasonic waves to an inspection-target material and the receiving angle of diffraction echoes from the inspection-target material is 30 degrees, so that a tip portion of the crack is detected from the received diffraction echoes. Thus, the detectability of the ultrasonic inspection instrument for detecting diffraction waves in a subject to be inspected and performing crack inspection is stabilized and kept high.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 30, 2003
    Publication date: June 24, 2004
    Inventors: Masahiro Tooma, Naoyuki Kono, Masahiro Koike, Hirokazu Adachi, Takao Shimura, Makoto Senoo, Tetsuya Matsui
  • Patent number: 5991360
    Abstract: A laser plasma X-ray source has an improved X-ray conversion efficiency and a minimized occurrence of debris, and a semiconductor lithography apparatus using the same and a method therefor are provided. An X-ray generation unit has a vacuum chamber 5 which encases the target; target supply unit 110 which supplies a fine particle mixture gas target into the vacuum chamber 5; a laser irradiation unit 120 which irradiates a laser beam 2 on the particle mixture gas target 10; and a target recovery unit 130 which recovers unused particle mixture gas target from the vacuum chamber 5.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 23, 1999
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Tetsuya Matsui, Kimio Yamada, Masatsugu Nishi, Manabu Ueno, Masahiro Tooma